Free Sky Warriors: Poleuthan's Thief (Sky Warriors Saga Book 1) by Nicole Pendragon Page A

below. By the time its wings carried it to the barren snowy lands, a blizzard stormed unrelentingly through the barren tundra and way below its sharp eyes caught a tiny black figure trudging through the snow, a human it was certain, it could even see it huddling itself. The beast’s fear suddenly manifested into panic as the figure collapsed, without even thinking, the great beast tilted into a dive, slicing through the icy wind towards the tiny fragile shape. As soon it neared it willed the icy storm to part away from the small human.
    Instantly, instinctually, the snow flew away from the human, obeying the beast’s silent whim. A huge dome of still air encompassed the small body, a thick wall of snow swirled violently around the air socket, waiting for the great beast to let it take its natural course.
    It glided gently to a land, its massive size sending a quake through the ground, even with the deep snow as its feather protected paws crunched the snow into deep holes. It gazed past the snow filled wind to the tiny black-clothed human, its eyes narrowing on the shivering form in the snow as the human’s hazel eyes gazed up in the beast’s direction. The beast knew the human’s pitifully weak eyes could not discern its shadowy form in the dark stormy night, especially with a wall of moving snowflakes.
    The human suddenly collapsed completely into the snow with a tremor, its eyes closing.
    The great beast’s panic turned into uncontrollable terror and before it even knew it, its body was vanishing into a void of ice and snow as another body quickly took its place…
    ***
    Ange awoke shuddering with cold. She opened her eyes unwillingly and was surprised and relieved to find herself still on the rinorse’s back that was now trudging slowly.
    She pulled her cloak closer around her small frame, the right side of her face and left arm stung with definite pain and she could move her arm again. She gazed surprised that she still clutched onto her dagger. She stiffly raised it up to her face observing the frozen dry blood. And for once she noticed her surroundings.
    An endless expansion of flat plains rolled around her as far as her eyes could tell, covered in deep white snow that reached up to the rinorse’s chest which gave it a depth of four feet. The one object she recognized which now loomed close and foreboding in the dark was the Poleuthan Mountain’s very edge and last jagged peak. Shivering icy wind rushed around them and as she gazed up waves of flurried began to slash around her, obscuring the last moon in the sky sinking to the horizon in the dark night.
    Ange’s teeth began to clatter as she shoved her blade into its sheath forcefully and then yanked the cloth down that revealed her tattoo before pulling up her mask over the majority of her face and was thankful it also covered her ears. She pulled up the hood and clutched the neck of the cloak to prevent the wind from whisking it away.
    She gazed around at the harsh snowy wind and felt her heart plummet in her chest. She was in the worse possible place in the world. In the Artic Dessert, as the guards had said, being in these lands was certain and unavoidable death no matter how prepared one was and she was certainly nowhere prepared to withstand the harsh and unmerciful terrain.
    She gazed back in vain hope, the rinorse’s tracks were still on the surface of the snow but she knew they would be completely covered within the hour with the weather that lashed around them. Then it occurred to her that she had nowhere to go, the Black Owls had been obliterated. She could feel the truth echo though her entire being and the thought sent a wave of grief over her. She had no home to return to, not even a friend.
    She felt tears prick her eyes and she flinched rubbing her eyes as the tears instantly crystalized around her eyes and on her cheeks. She hardened herself and decided now was not the time to cry, then she reflected she might never have another chance to